May 20th
Self-regulation is a facade.
The benchmark for sheer ridiculousness continues to rise. BP, Halliburton, and apparently everyone else involved in the oil disaster have absolutely no idea how to stop the leak.
They’ve actually resorted to using a “suggestion box,” which has thus far received thousands of ideas — 700 of them being fast tracked. Water-oil separating centrifuges are also being entertained, though they’ll only be used if someone else builds them.
As I was saying, pure self-regulation does not work. For-profit companies must inherently choose the options that maximize their bottom line, which is why there was no redundant safety mechanism in the “blowout preventer.” Additional backups rise operational costs, and businesses have an obligation to select the cheapest long-run option, always.
This extra overhead is why big companies hate government regulations and lobby like crazy to stop them. It hurts revenues. It has nothing to do with being morally against more government “control,” which is the messaging that gets passed to the general public.
Regardless, if the oil industry were more regulated, a drill tower would have more than a single blowout preventer containing 260 documented flaws.
Ironically, the costs attributed to the inevitable cleanup efforts in Louisiana will far exceed what a few extra backup mechanisms would have.
